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Muslim leaders urge government to help protect mosques, schools

Statistics Canada report last week showed hate crimes targeting Muslims rose by 60 per cent across the country in 2015, but applications for government funding for protection often rejected.

Persistent troubles: National Council of Canadian Muslims communications director Amira Elghawaby listens to a reporter's question as leaders of national and Quebec organizations joined the NCCM to call on governments to counter Islamophobia, racism and discrimination, on Parliament Hill on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017 in Ottawa. (Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)

Some Muslim community leaders are urging the federal government to do more to help protect their mosques and schools amid an increase in hate crimes.

A Statistics Canada report last week showed hate crimes targeting Muslims rose by 60 per cent across the country in 2015.

“It’s quite concerning the number of reports that have been coming in,” said Amira Elghawaby, a spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims. “At our organization, we have definitely seen a spike just in the last week of people reporting to us.”

In April, Public Safety Canada announced it would double its annual funding for the Communities at Risk: Security Infrastructure Program from $1 million to $2 million over each of the next five years.

The program allows not-for-profit groups linked to a community at risk of being victimized by hate crimes to apply for funding to help pay the costs of security improvements at places of worship, schools and community centres. Approved applicants can receive up to half the total project costs from the government to a maximum of $100,000 per project.

But some, such as Imran Haq, executive director of the Al Huda Institute, were told this week their applications have been denied.

“I know a lot of different mosques and institutes that have applied — we did apply as well — but, unfortunately, we did not receive any funding,” said Haq, whose institute provides educational program primarily for women.

“Women are some of the most targeted people in our community so it probably would be really prudent for us to kind of take this a little seriously. We don’t want to have to wait until we’re getting extreme threats to have to qualify for this funding.”

Public Safety Canada said the call for proposals it issued that closed on March 31 brought 246 applications from various Canadian communities at risk. After rejecting applications that were incomplete or did not meet the criteria for the program, the value of the funding requested exceeded the money available. So it scored the applications and only those with the highest score were retained for further consideration. The rest can re-apply when further calls for proposals are issued.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims continues to monitor threats to the community, according to Elghawaby. The organization tracks these incidents, but encourages people to report them directly to police.

There have been 40 anti-Muslim incidents reported across Canada already in 2017, compared to 64 all of last year, according to the organization.

Elghawaby said the community is particularly concerned following events around the globe during the month of Ramadan, including an attack on a London mosque Monday.

At least one Toronto mosque has added metal detectors for tarawih prayers which occur in the late evening during Ramadan, she said.

“The problem is there’s so much hateful rhetoric against Muslims right now,” said Ibrahim Hindy, an imam at Dar Al-Tawheed Islamic Centre in Mississauga. “People might be putting up hate videos just to get views, just to get popularity. It just needs one person to take it to heart, one person to find meaning in those words for something catastrophic to happen.”

In April, Hindy received death threats after speaking out in favour of accommodating Muslim prayer at Peel Region public schools.

One Facebook comment appeared to threaten to burn down the mosque, while a second threat, which appeared to have been sent by email, contained a photo of five Muslim men hanging from nooses, with the caption, “Islamic Wind Chimes.”

Following the threats, the mosque launched a GoFundMe page to raise funds for security infrastructure. Hindy said the mosque would need about $15,000 for equipment such as security camera systems to meet its immediate needs, but have so far raised just less than 10 per cent of that.

Hindy said there’s anxiety amongst members of the Muslim community, following incidents such as those in London and the Quebec mosque shooting in January, which left six people dead. Yet the notion of extra security is still a new concept, as mosques typically have open-door policies where everyone is welcome.

“Despite the attacks that happened, it’s hard for people to wrap their minds around the fact that there are people who go to a place of worship and kill people,” Hindy said.

“We don’t want to succumb to the fear, but there’s a lot of concern.”

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